Never Too Late
by run4life
Summary: "No one will ever see the side reflected; and if there's something wrong, who would have guessed it?" They said that you were only serious about doing something if you had an answer when someone asked you how you were going to do it. Oneshot, songfic.


A/N: Just a oneshot I wrote in school- the implied pairing should become obvious. Song: Never Too Late by Three Days Grace. One of my favorites ^^ Despite the angst that follows here *sweatdrop* Rated T for angst and potential violence. Review please! Summary: "No one will ever see the side reflected; and if there's something wrong, who would have guessed it?" They said that you were only serious about doing something if you had an answer when someone asked you how you were going to do it. Oneshot, songfic.

**~*:Never Too Late:*~**

The blonde man slowly stepped across the floor of the small, cluttered apartment. He started dutifully at the debris beneath his feet as he walked, blue eyes ever fixed on one spot. Passing by what appeared to be a pile of old leather and metal propped against a chair with three legs, he spared it a glance before a worn wooden desk caught his attention. A stack of books teetered on one end, with endless packets and folders and files covering most of the ancient surface. His eyes instinctively flicked away from the phone. It was beginning to collect dust, as were the few picture frames that had somehow escaped damage of any sort. Their inhabitants smiled frozen smiles at him. As he blinked at one, he swore he saw the briefest flash of silver and green in the fragment of his reflection. He gasped and recoiled, shaking his head hard.

_This world will never be  
__What I expected  
__And if I don't belong  
__Who would have guessed it?_

Cursing these increasingly frequent hallucinations, he stumbled blindly away from the desk. He made his way into the next room—a small kitchen.

He cursed everything about the past five years. In those years, he had been condemned, imprisoned, and tortured. He had, half comatose, watched his best friend die. He had watched his hometown burn. And all in all, he had failed to save what mattered most, in the end.

It seemed that he damned everything—everyone—that he touched. Never mind that some people credited him with saving the world. He hadn't, really. Everything that had gone wrong was all his fault.

_I will not leave alone  
Everything that I own  
To make you feel like  
It's not too late  
It's never too late_

Now, he just didn't know what he was doing. He was done with guessing, and thanks to a new perpetual fear of failure, he was paralyzed inside his own mind.

His eyes wandered cautiously around the small room, shying away from reflective objects out of instinct. For some reason, though, the knife block on the cluttered counter caught his eye, and held it.

They said that you were only serious about doing something if you had an answer when someone asked you how you were going to do it.

Thoughts floated around in his head. Narrowing down the possibilities.

_Even if I say  
It'll be alright  
Still I hear you say  
You want to end your life  
Now and again we try  
To just stay alive  
Maybe we'll turn it around  
'Cause it's not too late  
It's never too late_

Not so far away, a young woman with dark hair frowned to herself. He was supposed to have been here by now… She set off down the street toward a certain apartment, her steps quick and purposeful.

She often worried about her friend. They had known each other since childhood, and they had both grown a lot over the years. Maybe it was all that world-saving business, she thought. It was silly to pretend that the events of the past five years hadn't taken a toll on everyone. Somehow, though, it all kept coming back to her solitary friend. In a way, his past was the catalyst for any pieces of memory that dared to surface from the darkness of the last few years.

She knew he preferred to be left alone; chose his own company over that of others. She knew he got her phone messages, but didn't answer them—but she didn't see him throwing his phone away, either. He never called, but visited once in a while. She knew how tormented he was. She had been trying so, so hard to get him to open up, just a little. He wanted him to let her in—let someone in, just once. But it was so difficult. She thought she might be making progress. Then again, she knew he was still having nightmares.

She started walking just a little bit faster.

_No one will ever see  
The side reflected  
And if there's something wrong  
Who would have guessed it?_

He picked up the shining object by the handle with fingers that quivered slightly. He stared at its sharp, unbroken, cold clarity, and saw his own life reflected in his eyes, his own paradise blue eyes. Then, a trick of the light—or perhaps something more—and he saw the failures of his life reflected in that awful, damned, haunting, sickening green that was _not his, not his, not his._

He suppressed a scream and his fingers tightened into a death grip on the handle. He never ordered his body to move, but suddenly he was staring out an open window, the curtains fluttering, the cold steel still gripped in his hand.

_And I have left alone  
Everything that I own  
To make you feel like  
It's not too late  
It's never too late_

The young woman on the street below frowned up at the open window, seven up and three to the right. He never aired out that old apartment. It was almost as if he _tried_ to bottle up his horrific memories. Maybe he had seen the light, she considered. Nevertheless, she punched in the code at the door and paced quickly to the stairwell.

_Even if I say  
It'll be alright  
Still I hear you say  
You want to end your life_

He leaned out the window, space dropping below him and rising above him and shooting off in every direction possible. So much space. Yet, nowhere to hide. There was no escape. No way to evade the nightmares—_the_ nightmare. He would be haunted till the day he died…until the day that he died.

His gaze slipped back to his right hand and the smooth, cold shine that resided there. It winked at him, and he swore it was almost…inviting.

Suddenly he found himself in a new place again. He didn't mind, really—he just wished absently that something would let him know when he would spontaneously change location. Give him some warning. His eyes rolled slightly in panic at this sudden loss of control, but something pushed it down and made him look around. He relaxed against his will.

He was outside the window, on the narrow expanse of ledge not two feet wide, inches from the ever-extending space.

And how he wanted it. He wanted, desired, craved that freedom of space, the confinement of his own head gone. He wanted to disappear, dissolve into that beautiful, wide-open freedom.

_Now and again we try  
To just stay alive  
Maybe we'll turn it around  
'Cause it's not too late  
It's never too late_

She burst out of the stairwell and silently slipped to the door of the apartment. It wasn't locked, and that wasn't like him.

Something was very wrong. She stepped over the threshold, half expecting him to walk out of his room with that hesitant smile on his angular face. But he wasn't there. Wary, she turned on the spot, searching for some evidence of his being here. The only thing she felt was—wait. A draft came from the kitchen. She followed it to its source, and was only greeted by silence and an open window. On an impulse, she glanced out it, into the space beyond.

Somehow, she saw a flicker of black. She gasped and wrenched the window all the way open, and there he stood, looking darkly dangerous. He didn't move. In fact, he didn't even flinch. Only his dark clothing and his bright hair moved in the air currents seven stories up.

She screamed to him, fearing—and ultimately realizing—the worst. He barely moved. She yelled everything that she could think of at him, beginning to panic beneath her usual calm demeanor, knowing she was losing her hold on him. And his eyes—those clear, thrilling paradise blue eyes—were terribly wrong.

_The world we knew won't come back  
The time we've lost, can't get it back  
The life we had won't be ours again…_

He raised his head slightly, looking out into that beautiful space. She caught a glimpse, horrified, of what he was gripping in his right hand. His lips moved and he spoke just a few words.

_This world will never be  
What I expected  
And if I don't belong…_

She saw the contracting of his muscles. She saw his knees bend.

And she seized him and pulled for all she was worth.

They both tumbled onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. She turned to him desperately, everything all tangled up, her eyes desperately searching his face. His own eyes that were so much the wrong color stared at a spot past her shoulder, transfixed. She kept talking, and when she finally said his name, those eyes refocused and came back to the present time and place. Something broke, and something else was pulled taut to the point of snapping and recoiling, but held fast.

He gazed at her in wonder, with blue eyes that were very much his own. And for the first time in weeks, he smiled gently.

_Even if I say  
It'll be alright  
Still I hear you say  
You want to end your life  
Now and again we try  
To just stay alive  
Maybe we'll turn it around  
'Cause it's not too late  
It's never too late_

She knew it was really him. She knew that all of him, every inch and particle was here with her on this kitchen floor. That smile…only he could smile that way. His eyes were clear and blue as the sky, and she knew in that moment that she had turned the tables for good. She had saved him.

_Maybe we'll turn it around  
'Cause it's not too late  
It's never too late_

He knew it, too, and he clung to her, his lifeline, in the middle of that room like he had never held onto anything before. Right then and there, he made a new, different promise to her.

_Maybe we'll turn it around  
'Cause it's not too late_

And neither of them would ever forget what she said to him:

_It's never too late._

~*:Always Remember . Never Forget:*~


End file.
